Archive

I think from reading the blog it’s fairly obvious that I’m as interested in the gear as much as I am in cycling itself. So I thought it was worth doing a piece on a few apps on the iPad that are really useful for keeping up to speed with cycling.

First off, I’m probably a bit atypical in that I have a fairly decent (20mb) broadband connection, but due to poor coverage in the apartment I don’t actually have a standard TV setup. Rather I use online TV services, such as the RTE player (for Irish TV) and more recently Netflix for TV watching.But 2 months ago I bought an iPad, and while initially I I had some ideas on what I would use it for, it quickly became apparent that’s it’s also ideal as a small TV.

I cover the exact set-up I use over on my techie blog, but for here I’ll mention the Eurosport app. It costs €37 for 12 months on the iPad, but given that over the weekend I was able to watch some of the Strade Bianche and Paris-Nice wherever I wanted in the house, I can’t really find fault the price at all (although the fact that because it’s in ireland once again I’m gouged over a Sterling-Euro “conversion” that doesn’t detract from teh usefulness). One point is that a lot of people have complained that this pricing is standalone from peoples’ Sky accounts, but in my situation that doesn’t apply at all. Also, I have read reports that there are issues over 3G, but again that’s not something I use, so I can’t comment.

Next up the Rouleur magazine. I said I’d try it for six months (€18.49 (as opposed to €12.70 for a single print issue from wiggle), and it’s a bit of a disappointment. The magazine itself is a stunnning high-end publication, with a real emphasis on design. And while the iPad version is an exact copy, this is it’s downfall. In portrait mode one page at a time is displayed, and while this makes it the font easier to read, when you only see half a picture on each page it’s kind of annoying. But then in landscape mode it’s a 2 page layout, but again this has its pitfalls. While the 2-page photos are stunning, the font is too small to read. Overall while the content is good, the app design isn’t up to par. While design is of paramount importance to the print edition, the designers should know that mobile apps have different requirements. Add in the fact that the app is very buggy (I find that if I open the app and then come do other work, if I try and come back to it later it often takes a restart of the iPad to open)- again a disappointment.

But one app that really works on the iPad (or iPhone for that matter) is the cycling news app.It’s nice, clean and simple, exactly what’s needed in a mobile app. The font is a decent size, and easy to read, while there is a button at the foot of each article linking to the pictures. It’s simple, and because of this it works. Rouleur could learn a lot about how to design an app from this